Actions reference — all 35 scenario actions

An event’s ACTION is what happens when its trigger fires. drawtonomy offers 35 actions, each mapping to an ASAM OpenSCENARIO 1.x element.

The dropdown shows four of them under COMMON. The other 31 sit behind a collapsed More actions… row — that row looks like a group heading, but it opens when you click it. The dropdown lists them in menu order; the tables below instead group them by what they do, so you can look one up by intent.

An event can hold several actions. + Action in the event editor adds another; they all start when the trigger fires.

COMMON

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Change Speed	SpeedAction	Brings the actor to a target speed, absolute or relative to another actor.
Change Lane	LaneChangeAction	Moves the actor sideways into another lane.
Follow Path	FollowTrajectoryAction	Makes the actor follow a trajectory you drew with the Path tool.
Teleport	TeleportAction	Places the actor at a position instantly, with no motion in between.

More actions…

The remaining 31 actions live behind the More actions… row. They are grouped here by intent; in the dropdown itself they appear in a single menu-ordered list.

Longitudinal

Speed over time and forward gaps.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Speed Profile	SpeedProfileAction	Follows a series of speed / time pairs instead of a single target speed.
Keep Longitudinal Distance	LongitudinalDistanceAction	Holds a gap ahead of or behind a reference actor.
Synchronize	SynchronizeAction	Times the actor’s arrival at a position to coincide with another actor’s arrival at its own.

Lateral

Sideways position and sideways gaps.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Lateral Offset	LaneOffsetAction	Shifts the actor sideways within its lane without changing lane.
Keep Lateral Distance	LateralDistanceAction	Holds a sideways gap from a reference actor.

Position & routing

Where the actor is, and the path it takes across the road network.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Assign Route	AssignRouteAction	Gives the actor a route made of waypoints to follow.
Drive to Position	AcquirePositionAction	Sends the actor to a position, routing over the road network.

Controllers

Attach a controller to an actor and steer what it governs.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Assign Controller	AssignControllerAction	Attaches a controller to the actor.
Activate Controller	ActivateControllerAction	Turns an assigned controller’s lateral or longitudinal domain on or off.
Override Controller Value	OverrideControllerValueAction	Forces throttle, brake, steering, gear, or similar to a value.

Appearance & visibility

How the actor looks and what it is made of.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Visibility	VisibilityAction	Controls whether the actor is visible to graphics, sensors, or traffic.
Light State	LightStateAction	Switches vehicle lights — indicators, brake lights, head lights.
Animation	AnimationAction	Drives an animation such as a door, the trunk, or a wiper.
Connect Trailer	ConnectTrailerAction	Couples a trailer entity to the actor.
Disconnect Trailer	DisconnectTrailerAction	Uncouples the actor’s trailer.

Traffic & entities

Spawn, remove, and manage the actors and ambient traffic in the run.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Add Entity	AddEntityAction	Spawns an entity into the running scenario.
Delete Entity	DeleteEntityAction	Removes an entity from the running scenario.
Traffic Source	TrafficSourceAction	Continuously spawns ambient traffic at a position.
Traffic Sink	TrafficSinkAction	Removes ambient traffic that reaches a position.
Traffic Swarm	TrafficSwarmAction	Maintains a swarm of ambient traffic around a central actor.
Traffic Stop	TrafficStopAction	Stops a previously started traffic source, sink, or swarm.
Traffic Area	TrafficAreaAction	Populates an area or set of roads with ambient traffic.

Infrastructure & environment

The world the actors drive in — signals and conditions.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Traffic Signal State	TrafficSignalStateAction	Forces a traffic signal into a given state.
Traffic Signal Controller	TrafficSignalControllerAction	Switches a signal controller to a named phase.
Environment	EnvironmentAction	Sets weather, time of day, and road conditions.

Parameters, variables & sync

Scenario-level values, and the hooks that report outcomes.

UI label	OpenSCENARIO	What it does
Set Parameter	ParameterSetAction	Assigns a value to a scenario parameter.
Modify Parameter	ParameterModifyAction	Applies an arithmetic change to a parameter.
Set Variable	VariableSetAction	Assigns a value to a scenario variable.
Modify Variable	VariableModifyAction	Applies an arithmetic change to a variable.
Set Monitor	SetMonitorAction	Sets a named monitor value, used to report scenario outcomes.
Custom Command	CustomCommandAction	Passes a simulator-specific command straight through.

Note

Support for these actions in playback depends on the embedded esmini runtime. Every one of them round-trips through export and import, but an action the runtime does not implement has no visible effect when you press play.

Dynamics: the shape of an action

Most motion actions share two settings.

DYNAMICS decides what the accompanying VALUE measures:

DYNAMICS	VALUE is	Meaning
over time	seconds	Complete the change in this much time.
over distance	metres	Complete it over this much travelled distance.
at rate	m/s²	Change at this rate until the target is reached.

PROFILE, in the ADVANCED section, decides the interpolation shape — Linear, Cubic, Sinusoidal, or Step. It maps to OpenSCENARIO’s dynamicsShape.

Defaults differ per action. Change Speed starts at over time 2.00 s; Change Lane starts at over distance 30.00 m with a Sinusoidal profile.

Change Speed

Field	Values
RELATIVE TO	Fixed or Actor
SPEED	a number, in m/s
DYNAMICS	over time / over distance / at rate
VALUE	a number, in s, m, or m/s² depending on DYNAMICS

With RELATIVE TO set to Actor, two more fields appear:

• REFERENCE — the actor to measure against.
• MODE — × factor (a multiple of the reference speed) or + delta (an offset from it).

Fixed emits an absolute SpeedAction target; Actor emits a relative one.

Speeds are in metres per second throughout the editor. 8.33 m/s is 30 km/h; 27.78 m/s is 100 km/h.

Change Lane

Field	Values
TARGET	Left / Right / Same lane / Specific lane
REFERENCE	the actor whose lane the target is measured from
NUMBER OF LANES	a number — shown only for Left and Right
DYNAMICS	over time / over distance / at rate
VALUE	a number, in m by default

TARGET and REFERENCE work together, and that pairing is the part worth understanding:

TARGET	REFERENCE	Result
Right, 1 lane	the actor itself	Move one lane to the actor’s own right. A plain lane change.
Same lane	another actor	Move into whatever lane that actor is in. This is how a cut-in is written.
Same lane	the actor itself	Nothing. The editor warns you.
Specific lane	—	Move to an absolute lane ID from the OpenDRIVE road.

When you switch an action to Change Lane, it starts on Same lane with the actor referencing itself, so a warning appears immediately:

⚠ Change Lane target is the actor’s own current lane — no lateral movement will occur.

That is the default state, not a mistake you made. Set TARGET to Left or Right — which also reveals NUMBER OF LANES — or point REFERENCE at a different actor.

Caution

If you read the exported XML: Right is emitted as value="-1" and Left as value="1". The sign follows the OpenDRIVE lane-ID convention, where lane numbers decrease to the right of the reference line. The UI label and the XML sign look inverted, but both describe the same movement.

See also

• Triggers reference — when actions fire.
• Phases and events — PROFILE, PRIORITY, REPEAT, and the rest of ADVANCED.
• Build your first scenario — Change Speed and Change Lane in context.
• RoadRunner and OpenSCENARIO terms